1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for tilting rolled stock, which comprises a tilting head comprising grippers for gripping the rolled stock, the grippers defining a tilting axis, a lifting device supporting the tilting head, and a carriage supporting the lifting device and displaceable transversely to the tilting axis.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Tilting devices are manipulators for rolled stock mounted in front, or rearwardly, of rolling mills to grip rolled stock, such as a rod or a billet, coming from the mill, to hold it, to tilt it about the axis of the rolled stock over a selected angle, to reverse it, to displace it laterally for the next pass through the mill, and to position it for introduction into the mill.
To enable these manipulations of the rolled stock to be effectuated, the tilting devices have tilting heads which are rotatable into adjusted positions and which are supported on a lifting device on a transversely displaceable carriage. The tilting heads usually have gripping means comprised of a pair of clamping rollers which may be driven towards each other and apart in opposite directions to grip the rolled stock therebetween and to release it. Since the rolled stock is to be tilted about its longitudinal axis, the gripping means for the rolled stock defines the tilting axis, i.e. the axis about which the rolled stock is tilted by the tilting head. In the known tilting devices, the tilting head is therefore mounted on the lifting device for rotation about this tilting axis, which requires very complicated support structures requiring a considerable amount of space, such as interacting pairs of rocking levers or the like which may be moved towards each other and apart. This support structure is mounted on the lifting device so that the tilting head may be lowered below the rolling axis and under the rolled stock while the transverse displacement of the carriage enables the lifting head to be transversely adjusted between rolling stock gages. This functionally separated arrangement of lifting device and transversely displaceable carriage for vertically adjusting and transversely displacing the tilting head, on the one hand, and the support structure for tilting the tilting head, on the other hand, increase the complexity of the construction and its space requirements even further. This results in a complicated operation of the device and tends to cause malfunctions.
Accepted German patent application No. 1,101,329 discloses a tilting device for rolled stock, which comprises tongs supported on a transversely displaceable carriage and pivotal 90.degree. about an axis extending below the rolling plane. A ratchet-and-pinion drive connects the drive for transversely displacing the carriage and the pivoting drive for the tongs so that the tongs are pivoted simultaneously with the transverse displacement of the carriage to compensate for the transverse displacement of the axis of the rolled stock due to the pivoting of the tongs. Such a tilting device cannot tilt the rolled stock about its longitudinal axis, and the transverse carriage displacement used to compensate for the transverse rolled stock axis displacement can be adapted to different dimensions of the rolled stock only by changing the ratchet-and-pinion drive. This considerably reduces the usefulness of this tilting device.